I’ve been keeping a big secret for months – my photographs appear on all of them. I’m very proud about it, as you can imagine, to have you carrying my work in your wallets and purses. Click on the image for a closer look:

New Zealand bank notes redesigned from Rob Suisted photos

UPDATE: News article about the use of my images on the new currency bank notes, and NZ post stamp annual book cover.

First of our 2015 calendar creations have arrived. Here are 13 different titles we’ve done with John Sands New Zealand – part of a 17 year relationship we’ve had creating quality New Zealand calendars together. You’ll find them in most book shops, post offices, supermarkets throughout New Zealand. We never get tired of seeing them together, hot off the press.

Auckland City Hospital’s Motutapu Ward, the new Northern Region Haematology and Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, is using over 20 of our large murals.

The stunning facility has been co-designed with patients and has a range of unique features which have set a new standard in patient centred care. Former leukaemia patient and fundraising ambassador, Molly Rowlandson, says the new ward has exceeded all her expectations. ADHB press release

More research is showing that quality images of nature are important to our well being, and important in our lives. We enjoyed working with Klein (Architects of Specialised Environments) to get the best images – not only in subject, but in size and proportions to get the best quality reproduction.

There are three aspects for quality large reproductions: 1) Original image size before interpolation – i.e. the more pixels from the camera the better!, 2) reproduction size, how big is your mural going to be, and 3) viewing distance – how far is the view from the print? Viewing distance is often much neglected in consideration. E.g. a phone photo will work for a billboard size reproduction if the viewing distance is 100 metres away, but on a wall at a close viewing distance it will fail badily. If the print is viewed from a few metres then there is no substitute for professional files

We work really hard to provide image files that can go large, with close viewing distances. In fact, we’ve just invested in the new Pentax 645Z camera and full set of lenses, a camera of 51 megapixels per image. Professionally stitched image panoramas will make amongst the best image files for murals available anywhere.

We’ve added 2 new titles to a successful seven book series with New Holland Publishers. The series has been well supported by book sellers and educational institutions and have been great fun to produce.

Early reviews are looking good so they should be great additions, given that the other books have already had multiple reprints. Dr Sven Schroeder wrote text for Historic Places of New Zealand book, and Alison Dench took care of the High Country in New Zealand title. Thank you to both of you, and to New Holland for creating the great new additions. Find them in all local bookshops.

On stage to accept the award (on behalf of Harry Broad too), it struck me how wearing a suit and tie here was about as far away from a horseback on the Kaikoura Ranges in sleet and snow mustering cattle with the young stockmen; an irony that felt good.

I’d like to thank Nielsen Book Services and New Zealand Post for their support of the award. Department of Conservation and Landcorp for supporting the work Harry and I did. Jim and Tracey Ward, as managers of Molesworth, they gave us tremendous access and freedom to the Station – I’m sure letting a couple of ‘North Island townies’ loose on the property was a punt, so thank you. Also, the young stockmen that I worked alongside were great company and willing helpers to make things work – especially helping to coax a greenhorn horse rider into a horse rider of sorts – thank you. Robbie Burton worked passionately to make Molesworth a title to be proud of. Thank you Robbie, to you and your team at Craig Potton Publishing, I’ll be forever grateful for your work.

Thanks to readers and buyers. We’ve sold a tremendous number of books – in fact reprinting 3 times in a month, and that’s remarkable for New Zealand. Your support is fantastic and humbling. Clearly Molesworth connects deeply to the Kiwi pysche – and long may it I say.

Lastly, I’ve saved special thanks to all the booksellers that have stocked and supported our book. You are the ones that work at the interface with book buyers, and truly understand books and what people want. As a colleague in the industry said:

“What a marvellous achievement, congratulations! The Booksellers Choice Award is the best one to win as it is a reflection of consumer awareness, from the people who buy and sell books, not just the view of the judges for any one year.”

That is why the award means so much to me.

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (winner of the 2013 Man Booker prize) was in our category, so it was a tremendous surprise to win, and underlines what a tremendous job Robbie Burton (above right) and his team at Craig Potton Publishing did to create Harry’s and my work into something of weight and substance. That’s some competition to weather!

Of course, Eleanor was very gracious in defeat by Molesworth I should add. She has had a tremendous year, and collected awards on the night too. It was great to spend time celebrating with her – clearly she has been able to keep her feet on the ground despite her incredible win on the world stage.

Eleanor Catton, Elise Grange, Rob Suisted

If you’d like to experience more of Molesworth, then have a go with these:

Nikon make a tremendous set of binoculars in the Monarch ATB series. I was drawn to this model after Cornell Lab reviews that consistently place these binos in the same league as models many times their price.

I work and photograph in some pretty hostile environments – from the Arctic to the Antarctic, to remote parts of the New Zealand wilderness, and deliberately chose the lower priced model thinking I could wreck or lose several binoculars for the price of one Leica, Zeiss or Swaroski.

High Arctic Nanavut, NZ Sub Antarctic Islands, Antarctica - the Nikon Monarch's have had a good life so far

But alas, after a few years they’re still going strong after hardy service in salty coastal areas, mountains and near the Poles. But for one weakness, a broken eye cup ring (a common problem I believe because of the very thin plastic design and normal wear and tear) they have been excellent.

The thin plastic ring holding the eyecups eventually fails on Nikon Monarch Binos. A known weakness but easiy fixed though

Finalist in the New Zealand Post Book Awards, AND Finalist in the New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year Awards in the same week. Very proud about that. Please give us a vote in the Public choice awardsNZ Post Book Awards UPDATE: We WON! Have a look

My job was to communicate Bryce’s varied roles in one image. This was a formidable task as CEO of the NZ Fish and Game Council his is a complex and varied role. Primarily, Fish and Game is a statutory organisation concerned with the rights of anglers and hunters, and advocating for improving habitat.

The portrait needed to capture that variety. I wanted to focus on his advocacy for anglers and freshwater quality for all of us, but also how his day can stretch from political halls of the The Beehive, to the bank of a river. Here’s what I got:

The shot was fairly complex, it required a wide angle underwater photo to catch the habitat around Bryce and called for a balanced mix of underwater strobe, above water flash and ambient natural light. I used a slave trigger that fired the topside flash whenever the underwater camera strobe fired – one underwater strobe lighting Bryce’s legs, one flash pointing upward towards the softbox flash, and natural light toned down to give a sombre background to delineate Bryce’s from.

While we’re on the subject of our beautiful Southern Beeches, I took a photo that shows just how colourful these trees get. This was taken near the top of the 4×4 Porika Road track in Nelson Lakes National Park and shows both new growth leaf colour and beech mast flowering:

Colourful New Zealand Red and Silver Beech Tree forest

Of interest is that this year is a ‘Mast’ year for our beech forest.

Black Beech tree flowers

Masting is a breeding strategy that sees a species breed only once every few years, and then all individuals breed in unison, when conditions are favourable. Our beech forests are into it now.

We’ve been working with Kai Hawkins on some interesting projects lately. Firstly we completed the new Blenheim i-SITE visitor centre, and today we got photos of new bus shelters we’ve supplied some luscious large high quality images for great looking murals. Take a look:

After a 3 year gestation, our Molesworth Station Book is done – one of the most satisfying book projects so far.

Harry Broad is the author, and I’ve produced the photos. It’s been an incredible adventure.

Here’s an interesting behind the scenes video I shot while filming the unique Robinson Saddle muster (caution; it contains hardwork, a greenhorn learning to ride, some skinny dipping, some adventure, and a few laughs. But, mostly it contains spectacular scenery and a rare glimpse into a unique high-country lifestyle and job):

Special thanks to Landcorp Farming Ltd, Department of Conservation, the managers of Molesworth (Jim and Tracey Ward), Craig Potton Publishing, everyone who has featured in the book, and especially the many people who worked hard for us to make the project successful. Thank you.

Just had an enjoyable Radio New Zealand interview with Harry Broad and Kathryn Ryan. You can listen here to Harry share some wonderful stories he’s uncovered through his research (I never get sick Harry’s colourful telling), and I attempt using words to explain my visual portrayal of the Station and experiences.

Been lucky to spend some time hanging out with Kakapo, both in the wild and captivity, including one taking a major liking to me head.; a major treat in life. Another treat was seeing one of my Kakapo portraits used by Air New Zealand recently:

TV3’s 3rd Degree show last night said they have ‘new’ evidence proving Robin Bain was the murderer, from tiny marks on 20 year old photos. I’m a professional photographer, and once an A grade competitive target shooter (full bore and .22), so I took an interest in the ‘new’ photographic evidence.

I think what was portrayed was VERY UNSAFE and doesn’t offer a ‘slam dunk’ to the case as claimed by some. I looked into it and can easily show the new evidence does not prove anything. I’ll show you why:

This was taken on film, printed to paper, scanned and presented here. It’s high contrast, has been through various reproductions already, was a crop of the original frame, and looks to have been sharpened to maximise it’s contents (this is a problem as I’ll explain).

I looked at my own hand and immediately saw I had two marks, which turned out to be exactly the same size as my .22 rimfire magazine. Hmm, interesting. I grabbed my iPhone and here is my quick shot taken on the couch during the programme:

my first snap with my phone on the couch watching the 'new' evidence. Wow, I have two natural fold lines EXACTLY the same width of a .22 magazine too. Getting itneresting.

NOW I’m interested! How can it be so easy with a quick photo of someone else’s thumb (mine), get immediately into the ballpark of the new evidence? OK, let’s try with my Canon 1DsMk3 and 24-70 lens, and try to roughly copy the lighting (note the shadow direction – it will give very good relief to any folds or imperfections on Robin Bain’s skin from that side angle). Here’s the first go (quite difficult with camera angles and only 2 hands):

MOLESWORTH STATION, stories from New Zealand’s largest high country station, has been a 2 1/2 year journey with author Harry Broad, attempting to create a book that does Molesworth Station justice. At 500,000 acres the station is bigger than Stewart Island, and contains one of NZ’s biggest cattle herds. Here’s the first glimpse of the cover of the book, due for September release.

The name of Molesworth has huge national recognition, not only because it is our largest high-country station, but also because of the remarkable story of how, from the early 1940s, the legendary manager Bill Chisholm rebuilt a ruined landscape and turned it into a flourishing and profitable farm. Molesworth covers an area greater than Stewart Island, and is in every sense a working farm, home to one of the country’s largest cattle herds… > > > Continue reading : full post + comments > > >

Just had my 10th and 11th books hit the book shops; very satisfying to see them arrive.

Thoroughly enjoyed a RadioLive interview with Graeme Hill. Have a listen here for why Triffids were mentioned in the interview about NZ flowers, why NZ flowers are mostly white in colour, and the parasitic native orchid that gets its life from sucking it out of other plants:

“You should come on the May autumn muster to Lake McRae.” said Jim Ward, Manager of Molesworth high country Station.

What an invitation; for those that know Molesworth Station you’ll understand the significance of such an invite! For those that know Lake McRae (see map at bottom), many will regard this as a holy land of sorts. To join in on the annual cattle muster to push 400 cattle over the Inland Kaikoura Ranges to their traditional winter pastures is epic. Not only is it regarded as one of the highest cattle musters in the world (at over 1400m/4700ft), but it’s also one of the most remote seldom visited spots in New Zealand. With three stockmen & horses involved, and small backcountry hut, it’s also a very few lucky folks that have ever participated in this 100 year tradition. More folks have climbed Everest than been here. This is not a commercial trip, but a unique rare opportunity to join the stockmen on part of their annual work programme in the high country.

For the last 18 months I’ve been working on a book about this historic high country station with Harry Broad. Lance McCaskill wrote a seminal book about the first 50 years of Molesworth history. We’re bringing the history of this fascinating iconic high country run up to date. It’s New Zealand’s largest farm at 500,000 acres and sits nestled amongst mountain ranges between Blenheim, Hanmer Springs and Kaikoura.

Back at my office in Wellington, Nina, my Business Manager, was excited. She’d grown up with horses and rode professionally back in Sweden. On weekends she trains riders and horses. You will be fine, I’ll teach you she said.

So started a wonderful bi weekly programme designed to advance me from newbie to competent horse rider in less than a month, but most importantly to toughen up my softer spots. Each Tuesday and Thursday we shut the office at noon, headed for Wainuiomata and climbed on horses. My third lesson as cantering bareback. They pushed me hard to learn on the crash course but I’m very grateful now. Luckily I apparently picked things up fast, learning I think more about animal behaviour and psychology than staying on Red, Ray, or Teddy, the three boys I learnt to ride on. Bruce and Kelly’s property in Wainuiomata had a great variety of steep hills and trails to explore between flat work. Things started to arch and hurt in places you’d normally only see with a mirror; apparently a sign you’re doing it right. Weird that.

One Sunday night the phone went; it’s Jim. “Can you get down tomorrow? We’re bringing it forward due to weather”. I hurriedly finished my GST tax return, a quick pack and assemblage of equipment and I was on the ferry heading for the South Island.

I arrived late evening, got a bit of gear organised, hit the hay around midnight, to be up a 4.30am for breakfast with Jim & Tracey and the three stockmen that I’d be riding with for the next 3 days, Andy McLachlan, Cory Hollister and Tom O’Sullivan. Nine months before I’d met these guys on their first week on Station as they learnt horse shoeing from visiting farriers so they could look after their horses in the remote out stations through the year (a skill we’d rely on later…

Nice to be involved with the Department of Conservation / Air New Zealand joint venture partnership announcement.

Had one of my photos used as a giant backdrop to the Prime Minister of New Zealand’s announcement speech Friday night. A large mid air panorama photo (big enough to be printed 7m x 3m) taken hanging out the door at 5000ft. For health and safety reasons the sexy black AirNZ plane filled with very rare bird and animals was added later…(yes, that’s a Kiwi in the cockpit). Here’s the media for it on Stuff.

7m x 3m wide banner used as background to Prime Minister's announcement of the new relationship

FLYING GREEN: Prime Minister John Key and Air New Zealand boss Rob Fyfe have confirmed a three-year commercial partnership between the national carrier and the Department of Conservation. Photo by HAMISH COLEMAN-ROSS/Fairfax NZ